Brave The Shave or Wax For Maya!

Childhood Cancer. It feels like a cruel joke.

12 year old Maya only just started to love her hair again — streaked pink and purple, her little rebellion against all that cancer had taken from her. She was proud of it, showing it off. After a year of chemotherapy at the Royal Marsden Hospital (Sutton) from August 2023-August 2024, MiBG radiation therapy at UCLH (September-October 2024), and months of brutal immunotherapy in Southampton Hospital (November 2024-June 2025), it felt like a piece of her was finally hers again.

Now?

It’s all falling out.

Third relapse in July 2025 — her birthday month — and here we are again. Her pillow is covered in strands. The bathroom floor, the towels, her clothes, her hands. Everywhere Maya and her mum, Dellaine look, they see pieces of her. She scratches her itchy scalp because the falling hairs prickle her skin, sticking to her fingers, clinging to her like cruel reminders.

And Maya's exhausted. So lethargic. Cancer treatment doesn’t just fight cancer — it fights them. It breaks their bodies, their spirits, their smiles. Dellaine and Terry are forced to watch their little girl wilt under the weight of relentless treatment, her spirit bruised, her sadness quiet but heavy.

This is childhood cancer.

Kids get cancer too.

And it’s relentless.

It doesn’t stop, doesn’t care, doesn’t spare.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for walking alongside Maya & her family in this journey — your presence gives Maya strength to keep going.

If anyone is BRAVE enough, we’d love for you to join Terry (Maya’s Dad), and Jerome (her eldest brother) and Grandad Mike (Maya's Grandad) in shaving their heads alongside Maya — turning it into a fundraising event to help us get her through the next stage of treatment. Even if you can’t donate, a share to your friends and family goes a long way.

On 21st October, Maya will be admitted to Great Ormond Street Hospital for her CAR-T cell infusion (21st October – 11th November). During those three weeks, she is expected to be so poorly. The first two weeks she’ll be closely monitored in ITU/HDU, before moving to the oncology ward for the last week. Then, if all goes to plan, she will finally be discharged home.

Every penny raised will go directly towards helping Maya reach this next step — a treatment that gives her another chance to fight.

This battle is stretching Mayas family to breaking point. Her family are using all their holiday at work hoping they'll still be paid enough just to cover their mortgage whilst already relying on weekly food banks to get by — but losing their home to unpaid bills would be unimaginable on top of everything else.

‘Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for standing with our girl.’- Dellaine, Mayas mum

*Photos/videos shared with Maya's consent*